Harry Potter  An Experimental Subject
by BlueMagikMarker
Summary: OneShot. Is this the power the Dark Lord knows not? Maybe they've had the answer all along... Ron has a bad feeling though, and its not just indigestion.


Disclaimer: I don't own anything associated with the harry Potter universe.

Author's Note: Thanks to IP82 for his random comment on somebody else's plot bunny that inspired me to write a oneshot...

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"Hermione, I don't think this is such a good idea..."

Ron was being nigh impossible for the last few days, and neither Harry, Hermione, nor Ron himself knew why. And they had pondered it, oh how they had thought about the consequences and the benefits, the pros and cons. For hours Hermione had studied ancient and modern text alike, deep into the night whilst every other soul sleep peacefully, save one.

And it was not Harry for a change.

Ron just couldn't, he would absolutely not let them go through with it easily. They all knew if was just a feeling, even Ron knew it was such, but that didn't make him feel any better about what they were planning. His feelings had been right in the past hadn't they, had his intuition not saved them from trouble before? He just didn't understand the reason, to what end were they mucking about with things that had best been left alone? But there was no use arguing against the rock hard logic that Hermione presented, no use at all.

In the end it was just a silly feeling against a towering fortress of reason, and even though he knew it would be a fruitless effort, he still had to try and dissuade them.

"Ron, please, I'm tired of it. Nothing will go wrong, you worrying about it is so illogical."

Hermione was getting extremely frustrated with him, it seemed that there was no end to his pointless comments. They were going to go through with it and that was final. Harry had already agreed and the research had been done, what was left to question?

She tried once again to ignore him as they made their way down to the kitchens.

It wasn't as if she hadn't expired every available source, she had, and she was positive that nothing bad could happen. Books were the ultimate source of all knowledge, ages of collected thoughts spread about the pages before her, sharing the secrets of the past, present, and future. She had burned many a candle down to nothing in the days preceding their experiment, the pools of dried, hard wax a testament to her thoroughness.

She didn't have the same nagging premonitions that haunted Ron, she was too logical to let figments of her imagination bother her... because in the end what were they but unbounded guesses, theories with no basis in truth. It was stupid to let them rule your life, books were the answer, cold hard fact. She'd trust her life to the written word much sooner than a ridiculous thought.

"But Hermione.. I don't think it's ever been done! How can you say-"

Hermione growled, she actually growled at Ron, "ENOUGH! Nothing is going to go wrong! There is absolutely no reason to think something bad is going to happen!"

Ron shuffled his feet and hung his head, bowing to her superior confidence. Yet he stayed in step with her, moving headlong into an unknown fate. Besides, they might need him... if something were to go wrong.

He silently brooded until they came upon the secret entrance to the kitchens.

Hermione was anxious now, not because she thought about what could happen, only because the implications of what they were doing would be great. An advancement for all magical beings. She was excited beyond belief, it was such a simple solution, yet nobody had ever cared enough to try it... nobody had thought it was worth it.

She reached up to tickle the pear when Ron grabber her arm.

"Please Hermione... please."

He was begging her not to go through with it, pleading. At first she was furious, but then she saw the look in his eyes, the helplessness, the pain of what he'd gone through since their idea had been concocted. Yet... while it stung her, that he had so little faith, and while it shook her confidence... it was not enough. The plea of one boy, no, the plea of one man was not enough, even if he was one of her greatest friends.

"I'm sorry Ron," she said. That was all that could be said. Nothing more, nothing less.

He was done arguing, he was broken and beaten, and all he could do now was offer the support of a friend. They were both so resolute in this endeavor, so positive about it. They talked about the great change it would bring, while all he saw was failure, nothing great would come of it. He didn't know where the thoughts came from, he'd never had reason to doubt either of their judgments in the past, but it didn't stem the flow of them one bit.

Harry and Hermione had won the battle against his premonitions against his will, but they had done it. It was all up to them now, he could only watch.

But he didn't have to like it.

Ron sat at a low table looking very awkward with his long, gangly legs sticking the other side. And, as if it was one last-ditch effort to win against Hermione, he was surrounded by house elves and platters of food he could never hope to finish. It was immature, he knew it was, but with no other options available it was all he had left.

Plus the food helped to calm his nerves.

Hermione would have been annoyed at Ron, but the house elves were keeping him out of the way and quiet... just like she'd asked them to. Besides, she had more pressing matters to worry about.

Harry wasn't exactly nervous, but he was apprehensive about the whole thing. He'd always run headfirst in to the unknown, faced it without fear, but this time was different. He'd had time to consider his actions beforehand, weigh the pros and cons. And while it could be dangerous, the rewards would most certainly outweigh the repercussions... well, all of their research had told them as much.

All of Hermione's research that is. Harry was no good at studying. She'd assured him that it would 'prove to be a very prosperous endeavor' though, and he took that to mean he'd be more likely to defeat Voldemort.

He also wondered why Ron hadn't tried to dissuade him yet, but assumed that he'd grown tired of it. Maybe he'd finally acknowledged that he was morbidly curious about what going to happen, hell he himself was curious... and it was him at risk.

A few minutes after everyone had arrived they were ready to begin.

Dobby came hobbling over and took Harry's hand before leading him to the middle of a large ritual circle, the ritual circle had been researched thoroughly by Hermione when Harry had first recounted his encounter with Lucius Malfoy in his second year. Dobby had preformed some powerful magic which Harry was extremely interested in, and of course he had no idea where to begin finding information on it... so he asked the local encyclopedia.

Oddly enough, even with all of her SPEW ventures, Hermione hadn't looked deeply into the subject either. Once she'd found a few tomes documenting the diverse powers the elves held at their beck and call though, she immediately concocted a new course of action.

In short, after months of research, they were about to infuse the magical essence of a house elf, into Harry.

Suddenly the candles dimmed, and the chatter of house elves trickled into silence, it was beginning. Ahead of him Dobby walked out of the darkness chanting in high, squeaky tones, and with naught but a large leaf covering his groin. In his hands was a long twig, from which the bark had been carefully stripped.

The low light of the torches threw dramatic shadows across the cobbled floor as Dobby danced.

It was an odd sort of dance, because you wouldn't expect a house elf to move so fluidly, they were short, stumpy little creatures, but Dobby danced anyways. He danced well. It was like watching something come to life, a tree sprouting from the ground, a child growing into adulthood, it was like watching life progress, about creation.

Which is what the greatest magic was of course. Life.

House elves were very homely creatures for a reason, their magic was based in the earth mother. The living soul of the planet which spawned them, the being that provided and asked for nothing in return. In honor and thanks to the earth mother, they toiled endlessly to serve others, to support the creation and continuation of life.

So while Dobby's elegant dance reflected this unexpectedly, it certainly wasn't out of place.

As the diminutive elf danced faster and fasted, the lights grew more dim, yet brighter at the same time. They were following his movement. He'd not left one edge of the circle for a moment before the torch had faded and another was lit. There was a pattern though, that was not hard to discern. Dobby's shadow always fell in such a way that it was pointing directly into the very center of the ritual circle.

And there, in the middle, it grew dark.

It was like the darkness from the elf's shadow never left that place in the very middle, it just continued to grow darker and darker as the elf danced, until it was suddenly black, deep, unforgiving black.

And as soon as Harry had noticed it, the blackness was gone, and in it's stead stood Dobby's stick. Thrust straight through the hard rock floor and into the soul of the earth, a natural spring of magical power, the source of a house elf's magic.

There was a blinding light, followed by more high pitched chanting, and then there was nothing.

Until he was roughly shaken from a frantic Ronald Weasly.

"Mate, are you alright!", he was screaming, "HARRY!"

Harry groaned and shoved the large boy off him as Dobby hobbled over.

"Mister Harry Potter sir, youse have the house elf magic now!" the naked elf bubbled, his excitement was apparent in the way he was bouncing.

Hermione was the next to approach him, after Ron had backed off and Dobby had resigned to bouncing slightly behind Harry instead of right in front of him. "You should try to cast something Harry, some kind of elf magic." She said. Harry nodded quickly, he'd already discussed this at length with Dobby and a few other willing elves and was pretty sure he had the procedure memorized correctly.

He waved for everyone to take a few steps back before preparing to cast a simple elven cleaning spell.

In the time that it took him to flourish his well practiced hand through the motions, the room had filled with a dense smoke. A dense, unexpected smoke.

Ron was the first to comment with a simple, "Oi! what's this?", to which Hermion replied in kind.

"I don't know..."

It was once the smoke had cleared that things got strange, because immediately Ron began howling with uncontrollable fits of laughter, he literally didn't leave himself enough time to breathe between fits and promptly passed out.

Hermione was just staring blankly at Harry from her spot on the floor, where she appeared to have fallen backwards.

..and Dobby was openly weeping, with what appeared to be unbridled joy.

It was then that Harry realized what had happened, the horrendous thing which had occurred.

He'd turned himself into a house elf.

A little, green, large eared, bespeckled house elf, with messy black locks of hair...

Harry let out a high pitched squeak of surprise...

...and a squeaky house elf voice.

Hermione spoke timidly from the floor, "Well Harry, look on the bright side... this'll do wonders for SPE-", she never finished the sentence as Harry'd cast the most powerful house elf cleaning charm ever to occur... straight into her dirty lying mouth.

Ron came to and passed out with laughing again as Dobby continued to openly weep.

Harry gave a high pitched sigh.


End file.
